The U.S. Small Business Administration and Shaw University are teaming up on a Strategic Alliance Memorandum.

Cassius Butts, the SBA's Southeast Regional Administrator, and Dr. Dorothy Yancy, president of Shaw University, will sign the memorandum, which "will signify a joint effort by the University and SBA to promote small business through education and community outreach," according to a press release. The signing also allows the school and organization to address the needs of local minority small business interests.

Butts and Yancy will sign the memorandum on May 9.

Triangle.com weekend photo recap: North Hills had its weekly Midtown Music Concert Series Thursday night with the band Sleeping Booty. We have 64 photos online now.

Friday night is the First Friday Gallery Walk in Raleigh. Photos from the event will be on triangle.com later tonight. Also, triangle.com photographers will be at the 2011 Strawberry Festival Saturday in Durham. Event is from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Old North Durham Park. Check the website later Saturday for photos.

We will also have graduation photos this weekend at newsobserver.com. Here's a rundown that I stole from a story that editor Richard Stradling is writing as we speak for Saturday's paper. (Thank you, Richard)

Peace College: 10 a.m. Saturday, College Green; speaker, Deborah Ross, state representative from Raleigh.

Shaw University: 11 a.m. Saturday, Dorton Arena; speaker, Bob Etheridge, former congressman from Lillington. 

These photos will go online Saturday afternoon.

UNC-Chapel Hill: Sunday at 9:30 a.m., Kenan Stadium; speaker, Edward O. Wilson Jr., biologist, writer and Harvard University professor, two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction.

Meredith College: Sunday at 10 a.m., McIver Amphitheater; speaker, Sally Brice-O’Hara, U.S. Coast Guard vice admiral.

We'll post these photos Sunday afternoon.

The next two weekends will be busy ones in the Triangle as our local universities send their latest batches of graduates out into the world.

Here's the rundown (click the links for more info on each):

Saturday, May 8

Shaw University, 11 a.m., Dorton Arena.

Peace College, 10 a.m., on the College Green.

Saint Augustine's College, 9 a.m., Front Lawn

Sunday, May 9

UNC-Chapel Hill, 9:30 a.m., Kenan Stadium

Meredith College, 10 a.m. McIver Amphitheater

Saturday, May 15

N.C. State, 9 a.m., RBC Center

N.C. Central University, 8 a.m.,  O'Kelly-Riddick Stadium,

Sunday, May 16

Duke University, 10 a.m. Wallace Wade Stadium

Cash-strapped Shaw University just got a big federal loan.

The university will receive $31 million from the federal government by shifting debt it owes to Bank of America to the U.S. Department of Education.

In doing so, it spreads the payments out over 20 years, reduces collateral and lowers the interest rate.

Josh Shaffer reports.

At Shaw University, there's some mystery surrounding the odd place campus police apparently stored seized drugs: An officer's home.

According to police reports, a Shaw police officer kept four bags of seized marijuana and other campus evience in the garage of her home in Johnston County. After deputies recovered the evidence, the officer reported that case files had also been stolen from the home.

 Uh oh.

Josh Shaffer has the story.

Shaw University, facing mounting debt and reeling in the wake of the departure of its leader, has made a couple questionable hires of late.

A vice president, Lee Monroe, was hired by Shaw even though the university knew a jury in South Carolina had awarded $500,000 to a professor at his previous institution, Voorhees College, who claimed he punished her for rejecting his sexual advances.

And a new dean, David Marshall, was recently hired even though questions had been raised over his handling of private money at his previous job at McNeese State University.

Josh Shaffer reports.

Shaw University needs money.

Dorothy Cowser Yancy knows how to raise money. In 14 years running Charlotte's Johnson C. Smith university, Yancy raised $145 million.

Sounds like a good match. That's what Shaw officials hope anyhow. Yesterday they introduced Yancy as Shaw's new interim president. They hope she'll make it a permanent gig.

 Read more here.

Shaw University has a new boss. For now.

Dorothy Cowser Yancy, the former president at Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte, has been named interim president at Shaw.

Shaw recently bid goodbye to its president, Clarence Newsome, who left on a one-year leave as university trustees attempted to get the struggling institution back on track. 

Shaw University appears in dire financial trouble.

The Raleigh institution's president, Clarence Newsome, stepped aside today as the university announced his plans to take a one-year, paid sabbatical.

Willie Gary, chair of the Shaw board of trustees, said each board member will contribute $50,000 to help replenish the school's dwindling coffers.

Read more here.

We've been writing a lot about budget cuts in higher education lately and want to hear your stories.

If you work at or attend a local university here in the Triangle and have a story to tell, observation to make or complaint to rant about, we'd love to hear it.

Send me an email at Eric.Ferreri@newsobserver.com.